The Personal Injury Lawsuit Process: How Many Cases Go to Trial?

Did you sustain an injury during an auto accident, a slip and fall or another accident that wasn’t your fault?

If so, you may want to consider filing a personal injury lawsuit. A lawsuit can help you get access to the money you’ll need to pay off medical bills, account for lost wages, and more.

More often than not, personal injury lawsuits don’t end up going to trial. Recent studies have suggested that up to 95% of all personal injury lawsuits are settled before they reach the courtroom.

But you shouldn’t bank on a settlement taking place. Instead, you should follow certain steps to ensure that you’re able to build a strong enough case if your personal injury lawsuit does, in fact, go to trial.

Here are the steps involved in the personal injury lawsuit process.

Find a Personal Injury Lawyer

Thinking about filing a personal injury lawsuit? The first thing you should do is find a personal injury lawyer in your area to help handle it.

Look for a lawyer who has plenty of experience dealing with personal injury lawsuits. They should have a history of getting large cash settlements for their clients.

Ask Your Lawyer to Investigate Your Claim

Once you find a personal injury lawyer to handle your case, step back and allow them to use their resources to investigate your claim. They should be able to tell you whether or not you have a strong enough case based on the evidence they’re able to track down.

Your lawyer should gather and investigate:

Police reports

Photographs from the accident scene

Witness testimonies

Medical bills

Your employment history and your potential earning power

Your lawyer should also consider the defense that the opposing party might use when defending themselves in court. This can help them craft a strategic plan to help you win your case.

Create a Demand Letter With Your Lawyer

If your personal injury lawyer finds that you do have a strong case, the next step is to put together a demand letter.

This letter will outline the basic framework of your case. It’ll also let the opposing party in your case know how much you would be willing to settle for.

Your demand letter should include:

A list of the injuries you suffered during your accident

The medical bills that you’ve endured following your accident

The lost wages associated with your accident

Any pain and suffering that you’ve gone through since your accident

Other details relevant to your personal injury case

This letter is very important because it’ll give the opposing party some idea of what they might be up against in court. If it’s strong enough, they’ll be more likely to settle than to allow your personal injury case to go to a courtroom.

File a Personal Injury Lawsuit

In a perfect world, the opposing party in your case will agree to settle with you for the amount you requested. It’ll help you get the money you need to start paying off bills. Learn more about how that works following a settlement.

These things aren’t always that easy, though, which means the opposing party might reject your settlement request. If that happens, your lawyer will need to formally file a personal injury lawsuit for you.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that your case will ever see a courtroom. But it does mean that your case will get a little more complicated than it was.

Go Through the Discovery and Mediation Phases

Before your personal injury case goes to trial, it’ll go through a discovery phase as well as a mediation phase.

During the discovery phase, your lawyer and lawyers for the opposing party will have an opportunity to gather evidence from the other side. This will shed some light on how strong of a case both parties have.

During the mediation phase, a mediator will step in and make every effort to help the two parties avoid going to court. The mediator will try to help the two sides come to an agreement on a settlement.

It’s important to have a highly skilled mediator in place for this portion of your personal injury case. They can handle the negotiations between the two parties and do whatever it takes to help them agree on the terms of a settlement.

Take Your Personal Injury Lawsuit to Trial

If a mediator isn’t able to help the two parties involved in a personal injury lawsuit hammer out an agreement, it’ll be trial time. Each party will get a chance to present their side of the story in a courtroom.

At the end of the trial, a jury will take a look at everything that was presented to them in court and decide who was at fault during the accident that led to the lawsuit. They’ll award one side with a victory and determine how much they’re owed.

The losing party in a personal injury case does have the right to appeal the outcome of the case if they want. The case will then have to work its way through the appellate process if one side decides to file an appeal.

Start the Personal Injury Lawsuit Process Today

Ideally, you won’t have to worry about going through all of these steps when you decide to file a personal injury lawsuit. Many times, the person or company that you’re thinking about suing will rush to settle with you to keep the case out of court.

But there is always a chance that your lawsuit could end up going to court if your case isn’t as strong as it could be. It’s why it’s essential for you to find a great lawyer who can create the strongest case possible for you.